At last, despite the
unsuccessful efforts
of certain bodies to derail the Mount Murray Inquiry with spurious
legal
actions, the first part has been published. It is available from the
Tynwald
Library (3rd floor Government Offices, Prospect Hill) cost 8.00 and it
is surprising that the government's website has not mentioned its
release,
obviously preferring word of mouth to modern technology where important
documents like this are concerned.

At 400 pages, it's not light
reading but
it is very important reading. The Commission chose to release a first
volume
since the concluding volume cannot be released until some ongoing legal
cases have been settled. Since it was only released on the afternoon of
Thursday 3rd July, 36 hours before this paper went to print, you'll
have
to forgive a rather brief treatment.

The last issue (27) of Yn Pabyr
Seyr contained
the following statement in relation to the Inquiry:

On the political side, Mr.
Peter Karran
MHK for Onchan, who was successful in having the Inquiry instituted,
has
since been subject to a campaign of harassment and vilification by
certain
other members of the government in the Isle of Man. This ultimately
resulted
in the Speaker of the House of Keys, Mr. Tony Brown, whose own
involvement
in the Mount Murray planning fiasco has not yet been fully uncovered,
unilaterally
preparing a "report" into Mr. Karran's asking of questions in the House
of Keys. There continues to be conflicting interpretations of the
findings
of this report and it appears to be little more than a crude attempt at
intimidating both Mr. Karran and any other non-establishment members of
the Island's House of Keys from asking awkward questions.

Now to the report itself.

Page 53 para. 6.4 states:

He (Peter Karran MHK) made no
direct
allegation of corruption. What he said was that the the way in which
government
had conducted itself in Mount Murray matters created suspicions, the
profoundest
suspicions, that corruption had taken place. What he said was
incorrectly
translated by Mr. Brown SHK, into actual direct allegations of
corruption,
thus the Speaker said: "All he said and continued to say was, 'Corrupt
practices by government and ministers,' and yet he never once explained
or put to the House any evidence at all of what those corrupt practices
were." This is really quite a serious misunderstanding of what Mr.
Karran
was saying. The Speaker continued to pursue these misunderstandings
culminating,
as it were, when he said: "So, we cannot ignore that a member of this
honourable
Court has stood up and said there has been corrupt practices." Mr.
Karran
had not said that.

Page 65 para. 6.12 states:

In a nutshell, what he (Mr.
Karran)
said was that events had been most bizarre, we don't know what did
happen,
but they were so bizarre that people even suspected corruption. Let us
investigate all this in the interests of open, honest and competent
Government.

The report states that there was
no evidence
of corruption in the sense of money, gifts or incentives, but we read
on
Page 248:

18.9 We therefore looked at at
those
who appeared to us to be closest to the executive actions in in the
Mount
Murray events. These were Mr. Spence acting for the developer, Mr.
Mitchell
an executive of the Department of Tourism, Mr. Savage Chief Executive
of
the Department of Local Government and the Environment, and Mr. Vannan
Architect / Planning Officer whom, as we have seen, were directly
involved
in taking matters to Committee and in various correspondence.

18.10 We sought to trace Mr.
Spence
in order to take evidence from him but we were not able to contact him.
As already explained, Mr. Mitchell was not able to give evidence
because
of ill health. We were, with the full co-operation of the late Mr.
Savage's
family, able to investigate his financial affairs. This satisfied us
completely
that there was no financial impropriety or corruption in that sense on
the part of Mr. Savage. We are grateful to his family for their full
co-operation
on this matter.

18.11 We also sought to
investigate
the financial affairs of Mr. Vannan. This was much more difficult.
Although
Mr. Vannan purported to co-operate with the Commission on this matter
he
failed to respond to summonses and failed to co-operate with Chartered
accountants whom the Commission had appointed to assist him, as well as
the Commission, in providing relevant information to the Commission. As
a consequence Mr. Vannan's failure to comply with the summonses was
certified
to the High Court for whatever action the court considered appropriate
in all the circumstances.

Nonetheless, Messrs. Savage,
Mitchell and
Vannan (amongst several others) are subject to quite severe criticism.
Unfortunately, Mr. Savage died some time ago and so there is no benefit
of evidence from him.

The use of the term "pressure" is
used
several times to explain DLGE Officers acting improperly. Infact, it
seems
more that the Planning Department understood that the Department of
Tourism
wanted a favourable decision and, in the absence of any instructions to
the contrary, the officers acted (against all proper practices) to
facilitate
the other Department's desire. The only time it appeared necessary to
actually
mislead anyone at planning level was when dealing with the Planning
Committee,
the membership of which was outside the inner political circle.

However, the person who receives
the greatest
criticism is Alan Bell MHK, now Treasury Minister, whose past record on
tourism includes the failed bowling park at Nobles Park, the failed
Bounty
replica project and buying and importing hundreds of worn out tyres for
the Jurby race track when we have difficulty disposing the ones we
generate
ourselves for free.

This to name but a few.

In defence of his actions
contained in
the appendix, he states:

"I do not claim to be above
criticism,
and fully accept that:-

(1) I developed a working
relationship
with Mr. Spence, the agent for the developer. In my opinion, however,
this
is neither unusual or improper in the Isle of Man....This close
relationship
between the Manx Government and the private sector has always been
promoted
as a very positive advantage enjoyed by the Isle of Man over other
jurisdictions."

This bald admission of the
positive cosiness
between government and private enterprise in the Isle of Man
demonstrates
the problem we face: Our politicians simply aren't able to distinguish
between proper and improper relationships, thus exposing the Manx
people
to serial abuse. Politicians don't even need to be bought.

Throughout the report, Mr. Bell
consistently
denies knowing that the proposal was for a permanent residential
development.
Consistently, in a report that gives great weight to the benefit of
doubt
and avoids any speculation on motivation, his denials are rejected.
These
denials were often issued under Oath.

And so back to Mr Brown SHK. The
report
states:

11.121 The Commission's
overall perception
of Mr. Brown's evidence is that, far from demonstrating that the system
where a minister keeps his distance from planning applications is
sensible,
it highlights the serious flaws in such an approach.....The
Commission's
clear view is that he (Mr. Brown) took this detachment much
further
than any legal requirement demanded and consequently excluded himself
from
the business of the Planning Committee and the planning business of the
Department for Local Government and the Environment although still
undertaking
responsibility for the planning system.

That never stopped him
unilaterally overturning
Planning Inspectors' decisions, however.

And finally, on page 272 para
20.12

We are of the view that the
public
owes a debt of gratitude to the Members of the House of Keys who sought
a proper investigation on these matters, and to Tynwald for resolving
that
they should be appropriately investigated by a Commission of Inquiry.
It
will be significantly further in the public interest and of wide
general
benefit to the Island if government acts to implement our
recommendations
effectively.

Mec Vannin certainly appreciates
the efforts
of those who brought this matter to inquiry level and let's not forget
those who would happily have seen it buried, not least of whom is the
current
Chief Minister, Richard Corkill. His tactic was to whinge about the
cost
of the inquiry. There is no price on truth and if we had anything
approaching
an open, transparent and honest government, it wouldn't cost so much to
find answers to questions in the first place.

Mr. Bell is refusing to
resign. That
leaves it upon Mr. Corkill to sack him, in the best interests of the
Isle
of Man.

There
is no housing crisis : Official

Just now and again over the
past five
years, an MHK or two has tentatively raised the issue that Manx people
are increasingly being driven out of their own country because they
can't
afford housing.

When this has happened, the
central administration
has eagerly seized the opportunity to call for more houses to be built.
The pressure to redesignate land for building is growing all the time
and
doesn't Dandara just love that!

As Mec Vannin has stated clearly
on many
occasions, building more houses simply accommodates more immigration.
House
prices continue to rise and will continue to rise.

The development frenzy is just
what the
Corkill administration wants, of course, and all the better if people
who
pull down earning and GDP statistics can be eliminated without
resorting
to anything messy such as gas chambers, bullets or base-ball bats.

As evidence of how much Mr.
Corkill doesn't
give a tuppeny damn for his own people, we reproduce for you the
property
paragraph from the government's internet site:

Residential Property

The construction industry has
been swift
to respond to the demands of a growing Island population and homes of
all
sizes, to suit most tastes, pockets and lifestyles, are available in a
variety of locations. Potential buyers will find a comprehensive range
of properties available on the Island including apartments, bungalows,
traditional terraced, semi and detached houses and quaint country
cottage
retreats right up to large country and coastal properties.

The greater part of information
on the
site is slanted heavily towards attracting immigration from
predominantly
British passport holders and is keen to play down any negative aspects
regarding immigration and permit laws etc.

Since immigration is the key
factor in
many social problems we face, the deliberate distortions by the
government
to further pump up the population whilst pointedly refusing to take any
effective action to alleviate the housing crisis amongst the Manx
people
is worse than incompetent, it smacks of deliberate intent.

Work
Permit Committee without accountability

Earlier this year, the BBC
were found
not to be complying recently in relation to sending temporary workers
to
the Island to make news reports. This deficiency appears to have been
corrected
"on the nod" and Mec Vannin wrote to the Work Permits Committee to find
out if the procedures had been properly observed (see below),
particularly
in light of the increasing number of multi-media journalists and
students
available in the Island.

Dear Sirs,

In light of the recently
publicised
granting of work-permits to BBC staff, could you please tell us what
steps
were taken to ensure that suitable Manx workers were not available?

This was sent by e-mail and fully
traceable
but received no response. Likewise, a physical letter sent to the Work
Permit Committee on a separate matter
received
no response. When challenged, we received the following response:

Dear Sir

Your e-mail of 10 April has
been forwarded
to me for response.

The Committee were made aware
of your
organisation's previous e-mail dated 19 February asking what steps were
taken to ensure that suitable Manx workers were not available in light
of their decision to approve work permits for BBC reporters.

The Committee, whilst noting
your enquiry,
nonetheless instructed the Secretary that the members did not consider
it appropriate to enter into correspondence with any third party or
external
organisation in respect of specific applications for reasons of
confidentiality.

However I am able to confirm
that all
applications submitted to the Committee are considered in accordance
with
the requirements of the relevant legislation.

No correspondence received via
land-mail
regarding work permit issues has come to my attention.

RegardsSue AshSecretary, Work Permit Committee

The Work Permit Committee have
played the
old "confidentiality" card, a sure sign that proper procedures have NOT
been followed. Furthermore, in adopting such an attitude, it has
effectively
placed itself beyond scrutiny.

That is not a situation any of us
should
be willing to tolerate.

Mec
Vannin
AGM Resolutions

1.This AGM calls upon Tynwald to:

a) reform the Legislative Council
to be
a popularly elected body.b) ensure that, until such time as
Legislative
Council is a popularly elected body, no ministers can be appointed from
within its membership.]

2. This AGM:

a) reiterates the Party's total
opposition
to the "Defence contribution".b) calls upon the Chief Minister to
seek
its abolition at the earliest possible date.c) deplores the use of the Isle of
Man
(and most particularly its schools) as a recruiting ground for the
British
armed services.

[4. This AGM endorses current
government
policy in relation to the "Pension Supplement".]

5. This AGM calls for a public
inquiry
into the government's dealings in relation to the acquisition of and
subsequent
dealing in the Nunnery property and Business School.

6. This AGM:

a) condemns the situation whereby
the only
independent recourse available to scrutinise government activities is
the
colonising power, to whit the UK.

b) calls upon this situation to
be addressed
by a genuine Freedom of Information Act and the ability to convene an
independent
inquiry body comprising international personnel without vested interest.

7. This AGM:

a) rejects the government policy
of zero
rate income tax as ultimately suicidal, both economically and in
relation
to achieving genuine independence.

b) calls for the fundamental VAT
/ income
tax strategy to be overturned.

8. This AGM calls for the more
transparent
and equitable operation of the IoM Arts Council.

9. In light of the increasing
possibility
of mortgaged properties in negative equity and the Treasury Minister's
frank admission that the finance sector is "hanging by a thread," this
AGM calls upon the Isle of Man Government to provide support to
vulnerable
first-time buyers who may face financial ruin from a situation that is
of the government's making.

11. This AGM

a) calls upon all MHKs and Civil
Servants
to be required to declare any gifts, favours or benefits in kind from
any
person or body that may benefit from favourable decisions within
government
and its departments.b) calls for a compulsory register
of
such gifts, favours and benefits in kind received in the past ten years
to be established.

12. Withdrawn

13. This AGM calls upon the
Department
of Education:

a) to address the deficiency of
teaching
staff in its Manx language peripatetic
teaching
programme.b) to target proficient Manx
speakers
for recruitment and training as teachers of the language rather than
making
teaching / child-care qualification take priority over linguistic
proficiency.c) address the curriculum problems
that
deny children the opportunity, real or perceived, to learn the Manx
language.

14. This AGM calls upon Tynwald
to recognise
the Manx language as an official language of the Isle of Man in Law.

15. This AGM

a) reminds all Departments of
Government,
Local Authorities, Boards of Government etc. of their obligation under
Tynwald Resolution to use, wherever practical, the Manx Language on
signage,
stationery etc.b) specifically urges the Department
of
Home Affairs to include the Manx language prominently on police
vehicles.

16. This AGM calls upon all Local
Authorities
to:

a) reject estate and road naming
that does
not reflect our Celtic / Norse heritage.b) advocate the usage of existing
traditional
names for places within their boundaries.

17. This AGM reiterates the
Party's views
in relation to Local Authority restructuring as expressed in its
submission
to the "Time for Change" consultation exercise.

18. See next all

DLGE
Waste Policy without credibility

Mec Vannin's 2003 AGM carried the
following
Resolution:

18. This AGM, recognising the
principle
of "polluter pays,":

a) calls upon the DLGE to
provide economic
and practical assistance to Local Authorities to implement recycling /
composting programmes.

b) condemns the DLGE's waste
strategy
in relation to charging by weight as a "buck passing" excercise that
will
not, ultimately, reduce waste.

Early in 2003, the Isle of Man's
Department
of Local Government and the Environment announced a massive 100%
increase
in refuse disposal charges (per tonne) to be levied against the Local
Authorities
under its control.

There was no consultation with
the Authorities
prior to this and charges have risen with no period of grace to allow
the
Local Authorities to implement a strategy or policy for the equitable
treatment
of those who will ulimately pay: The ratepayers.

Several Authorities have already
declared
their intention to charge households by weight.

The Minister responsible, former
Rushen
MHK Pamela Crowe, was recently elevated to the Legislative Council
where
the electorate cannot touch her and, despite a claim that she would
resign
her Ministership if "elevated", remains firmly entrenched as the DLGE
Minister.

Though claimed to be a policy to
reduce
refuse volume, the DLGE has not implemented any mechanism to facilitate
alternatives to mass dumping and (shortly) mass burn incineration.Although there is a claimed
recycling
programme, it has lost a lot of credibility when it was uncovered some
years ago that most of the materials so concientiously
segregated
by the public were being dumped in landfill by the DLGE anyway.

Despite an intervention by
Tynwald, for
this year at least, that will subsidise domestic costs by 90% (making
domestic
refuse disposal cost the same in the short term) and
as
stated, whereas Mec Vannin supports the principle of polluter pays,
this
crude and punitive policy, completely bereft of any intelligent
forthought
will:

Encourage illegal dumping.

Penalise families already
near
breaking point
under the weight of outrageous housing costs.

Lead to "neighbour wars",
with
people attempting
to use other people's bins.

Encourage the burning of
household refuse
on open fires with an ensuing impact on air quality.

Some Authorities have announced
their
own composting and segregation schemes though the cost must be borne by
the ratepayers. Against this, however, are reports that some
Authorities
are refusing to take certain re-usable items at their Civic Amenity
sites
and disallowing the removal of others.

Had the DLGE been acting
intelligently
and in accordance with its stated policy heirarchy of Reduce, Re-use,
Recycle,
Dispose, it would have implemented a central, more cost effective
scheme.

This would include, as Mec vannin
has stated
several times during the past years, having Tynwald levy a packaging
tax
to reduce unnecessary packaging at source.

Thermoplastic recycling plant to
provide
commercial granulated polythene for home use and export.

Lead/acid battery recycling to
recover
re-usable plastic and lead.

These are just a few of the
initiatives
available that have not been properly investiaged by the DLGE and the
now
"untouchable" Minister must carry the blame for that failiure.

End of Statement.

After this, an attempt by Keys
speaker
Tony Brown to have the matter readdressed failed and it is a poor
reflection
upon the Keys that his motion failed to even get discussed.

The most damning evidence of the
incompetance
involved, however, is the charge by weight policy. Whilst every other
government
in the world which is attempting to address the issue is aiming at
reducing
the problem of waste VOLUME, the DLGE under Mrs. Crowe has
chosen
to charge for the meaningless component of WEIGHT!

In other words, you can have 4-5
bins of
expanded polystyrene waste emptied for around the same cost that will
be
charged to someone who has a single bin full of compacted domestic
waste.
That is sheer stupidity.